Crossfire by Hane Shinohara

Crossfire

The night was quiet, lazy. A waxing moon trawled unconcernedly across the velvet black of the sky.

The indolence of the atmosphere suited Gojyo. The indulgence of it did. He stood leaning on the railing; a half empty glass of bourbon in one hand, a cigarette in the other.

He wasn’t drunk. Just pleasantly buzzed. Just at that certain point where the world goes all comfortable and fuzzy at the edges of one’s vision but hasn’t started whirling or turning black yet. It was nice to sit here and enjoy the feeling, enjoy the satiation of his nicotine craving and not have to think about anything.

Sanzo might have remarked that not thinking about anything was Gojyo’s natural state of being. The monk’s lack of presence to remark so only made Gojyo smile beatifically.

“To just us, ladylove,” he said aloud, toasting the bright moon with his bourbon. He knocked back the rest of the amber liquid and smiled at the burn of it.

Or maybe not ‘just us.’

He felt the shift in the air before he heard the muted rustle of fabric. He started to turn, grin already in place and playfulness in his voice, figuring there was only one person who would bother to come and track him down.

“Tired of bouzo and his pet so early, Hakk– ” He stopped.

Moonlight turned Hazel’s smile of veiled amusement at the slip into alabaster. “Evening, Sha-han.”

Gojyo’s eyes flicked warily to the empty air at Hazel’s shoulder, noting the lack of hulking bodyguard there before coming back to rest on the silver haired man’s face. “You.”

“Me,” Hazel agreed pleasantly. It was by no means early in the evening, but the priest was still fully dressed in his ridiculous long black robe thing. The moonlight added a sheen of silver over black fabric.

“What do you want?” The halfbreed’s voice was flat and just barely civil. He’d been having a very good night up until about two seconds ago.

“Oh, nothing really.”

Gojyo snorted. “Bullshit.” He set the empty glass down on the railing with a bit too much force and leaned back on the wood with dangerous nonchalance. “You looking for Sanzo-sama?” he drawled, enjoying the way Hazel’s mouth tightened at the name. “He ain’t here. Just me.”

“Just you,” Hazel repeated softly. Blue eyes gave nothing away. “Youkai.”

Gojyo tensed despite himself. His right hand twitched, aching for the weight of his shakujou. “That what you’re here for?”

He could take Hazel. He was sure he could, even if the sneaky bastard was hiding a blade under all that heavy black fabric. Gojyo had height and leverage and youkai enhanced strength. Hazel was just a skinny little prat. But if that shikigami was lurking ….

He was so busy plotting the fastest way to get Hazel’s throat wrapped in chain (surely the shiki would hesitate if his master was held hostage) that Gojyo nearly missed the man’s reply.

“……no. Not tonight.” The amiable smile, as much a mask as Hakkai’s, came back. “I merely wonder, Sha-han, if it’s possible that you were born in this country.”

Gojyo blinked. Err.

“I’ve never seen hair so vivid a red. Not among the peoples here, anyway. I wonder if there might be a bit of …foreign blood in your veins.”

Not foreign the way Hazel was thinking of. Gojyo said nothing, just a little bit uncertain. The bishop knew he had youkai blood. Either didn’t know or was playing dumb about the fact that Gojyo had human blood to go with it.

He took a long drag off his cigarette, knowing it wouldn’t do any good for the tension in his muscles. “Whatever you want to call it.”

“I could call it a pity. That one should suffer for the sins of the father.”

Okay, so Hazel apparently did know about the coloring of hybrids. Gojyo’s mouth twisted sourly. “I hope you didn’t trouble yourself, coming all the way out here just to pity lil’ old me.”

The bishop had moved closer when he wasn’t looking. “No trouble. One must be grateful for the opportunity to aid the child astray from the path.”

He abruptly turned to face away from the Westerner, flicking his cigarette over the balcony. “I don’t see any kids around here, Shikyou-san.” Biting off the honorific, in no ways unclear about the fact that he didn’t want Hazel here.

“We are all children in the eyes of the Lord.”

“Whatever.”

Hazel seemed bent on annoying him by continuing this conversation. “It is not too late to repent the curse of your blood, you know.”

Gojyo could have laughed, suddenly amused as all hell. Was the man really out here trying to convince Gojyo that he could …what, atone for being half and half? Biology didn’t work that way. He was what he was and nothing could change it.

“You didn’t ask for it.”

A snarky retort froze, died on Gojyo's lips.

Hazel’s voice was level, although Gojyo couldn’t see the bishop’s expression when not facing him. “The bastard is not guilty for the sins of his father and mother. Nor is the child born out of wedlock, or that begot of rape.” And then softer, closer to sincere than Gojyo would ever have thought the other capable of. “It was not your fault.”

Gojyo snarled silently, all amusement fled. Irritation snapped in his voice. “Fuck off, asshole. I don’t need or want your damn sympathy.”

“I do not offer sympathy. I offer redemption.” Hazel sounded entirely unfazed at the burst of profanity directed at his person. “Did you not curse the fates for it? For placing you between worlds, to be scorned, hunted, hated by both?”

Gojyo closed his eyes and tried not to remember the glint of an axe. “None of your damn business.”

“It’s very much my business, actually.” The priest had stepped up to the balcony next to him, stood looking out at the sky. “The saving of lost souls.”

This was getting weird, and beyond Gojyo’s patience to deal with. “Thought you thought all youkai were irredeemable, murdering beasts.”

“Oh, they are,” Hazel replied cheerfully. “But you’re not exactly a youkai, are you?”

“ …I am.” And that surprised him, how difficult it was to say. But his mother had been a youkai. Jien was a youkai. Gojyo had never even seen the human woman whose womb he’d been carried in. He was a hybrid, but he’d always been lumped in with Hakkai and Goku as ‘Sanzo’s three youkai companions.’

Evidently half of his blood being human made no difference.

“I don’t believe so. I have said that Cho-han and Son-han are different from the other youkai Gato and I have come across,” Hazel rested his arms on the balcony, white gloved fingers lacing together. “Perhaps it is because of the limiters. But you ….” and now Hazel looked at him, with god knew what roiling underneath the surface of that calm, unflappable expression, “You wear no limiter. You need none. The instincts for violence are not the same in you.”

Gojyo smiled out at the night and not a bit nicely. “Oh, I think my instincts for violence are quite developed, thanks.”

“When the need arises,” Hazel conceded, perhaps amused. “That is the way of all living things who wish to continue surviving. But there is no pleasure in the kill, is there? No joy in the pain of others.”

“Nah,” Gojyo drawled. “It’s only sick bastards like you that enjoy killing.”

The Westerner refused to rise to the bait. “I am only protecting the innocent people who asked to be defended. And the youkai I kill are those who attack first.” His voice grew hard for just a moment, remembering. “None of them have ever stood down peaceably. Not one. Any human in their sight, old, young, innocent, and they always attack first.”

Gojyo shifted his weight uneasily. Granted, most of the youkai that came after the ikkou were under orders, so of course they would attack first, but there’d been others, completely unassociated, and it was true that they did rush headlong in battle at the mere sight of four ‘humans.’

“My God frowns on killing, you know,” Hazel told him, as if Gojyo had indicated any interest. “But we do what we need to do to survive in a world like this. His salvation comes only after death. I’d like to think there is something a man can do to save himself and others in life.”

“You’re talking to the wrong person about theology,” Gojyo muttered, shoving off the railing. He was way weirded out by this whole thing and fully intended to retreat back to his room and Hakkai in his room and whine himself some compensation over being cornered and lectured by a creepy little priest man.

“You wear those scars on your cheek like a brand.”

Gojyo froze.

Silk wouldn’t have been smoother than Hazel’s voice. “Very clean lines, for youkai claws.”

No. No no no.

“Everyone needs a little salvation. Surely you were looking for it when you got those wounds, hm?”

Jien, standing over their mother’s body and a bloody sword in his hand. Jien, crying, because of Gojyo and what Gojyo had made him do. Their mother, crying, with the axe held high, because of Gojyo and what Gojyo had driven her to.

“If you believe yourself a youkai, as you claim, why would one attack you? If you’ve fully accepted the demonic side of your heritage, you ought to be treated as one of their own. Wasn’t that the case?”

“…shut up.” Gojyo barely recognized his own voice, low and dark in the night.

“Did they not want you?” Hazel sounded completely unconcerned, as though he were theorizing the chances of it being sunny tomorrow, instead of digging into someone’s bleeding wounds. “Or maybe you were the one who couldn’t fit in with them. A little hesitance, perhaps, deep down inside, over giving in to that sort of bestiality. You can end lives as efficiently as any murdering youkai, Sha Gojyo, but you are not the same.”

Gojyo wasn’t even aware that he was moving until he heard the wood creak in protest over Hazel being slammed up against it, and his fists knotted in the bishop’s robes, and his weight pressing the shorter man half over the railing. “I think you’re mistaken,” Gojyo hissed, hating the way that Hazel’s expression refused to change, hating the calm in his eyes. “About a lot of things. Youkai always attack first, right? Call out your shiki if you wanna fight. I’ve already given you the excuse to retaliate.”

Hazel actually smiled at him. “Humans attack first when provoked, to protect themselves from what they know is true and can’t accept for the pain of it.”

The silver haired retard evidently didn’t know how close Gojyo was to tossing him right over the edge of the balcony. He snarled, tempted to do just that and screw the inevitable Revenge of Gato, when white gloved fingers brushed gently over his scarred cheek.

“Did it hurt?” Hazel whispered.

Gojyo jerked backwards as though he’d been burned, something close to panic rushing behind his eyes. One protected old wounds. One curled around them whey they were threatened and lashed out when they were prodded.

“Don’t touch me.” His chest was heaving for some reason.

Hazel detangled himself from the railing, but his eyes never left Gojyo’s. “So defensive,” the bishop murmured. “You let a youkai touch you. Who was it? An enemy? A lover? Family? Or even ….” And he had taken a step forward, unheeding of the very real possibility of Gojyo feeling cornered enough to attack. “ ..Cho-han or Son-han?”

Gojyo growled. The way Hazel said their names set his teeth on edge, the lingering syllables, as though he knew them better than Gojyo did. “Leave them out of this.”

“No,” Hazel said after a moment of thoughtful silence. He advanced another step. “I don’t think I will. After all, you won’t. Why cling to youkai brethren who marked you so?”

The halfbreed fought down an urge to step back, because that would be giving ground, and Gojyo did not give ground to skinny assholes with entirely too much interest in his business. “They didn’t do this,” he ground out.

“I see they didn’t save you from it, either.”

“Fuck off. You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Hazel smiled pleasantly. “That would be true, of course, but I wouldn’t have brought this up uninformed. I’ve heard a great deal about you…about all of you, from the areas we’ve passed through. Your exploits attract a great deal of attention, and you know how village women like to gossip.”

“So you listen to a few rumors and suddenly you’re an expert on us. Right.”

An elegant shrug. “I know what I’ve heard. Sanzo-han travels West with three youkai, but one isn’t a youkai at all. A forbidden child, rather, who looks and acts human, a rogue with a taste for vice. Quite the skirt-chaser, the ladies’ man, is Sha Gojyo.” His voice grew mocking on these last words. “One must wonder what he seeks in all those women. All those human women. Looking for something missing, maybe? Something you can’t have?”

“……….”

“Guilt is guilt, Sha-han, and every person deals with it in his or her own way. It’s not enough, is it, to drift between two worlds. There’s always the drive to find acceptance in one or the other.”

Go away. Go away. Go away or better yet, I’ll go away. But Gojyo’s escape route was blocked by 100 lbs (or less, the girl) of bishop. Hazel had somehow during the course of their very one sided conversation maneuvered himself between Gojyo and the way back inside.

Gojyo glared. Hazel met it with a steady look of his own.

“Move.”

“I don’t believe I’ve finished speaking.”

“You’re finished now. Move.”

Hazel’s eyes went flinty. “I am being polite in asking you to hear me out, Sha-han.” There was a Gato implied in the concept of Hazel ceasing to be polite.

Gojyo tried, without much success to rein his temper back in. He wasn’t feeling up to dealing with shiki Godzilla just now. “Just …get to the fucking point, then.

“Fine. I know what you’re looking for with all those women. What it is you really want.”

Gojyo scowled. “I don’t want anything, except for you to get out of my way and leave me alone. I’ve got better things to do than listen to you.”

“Like entertain the curiosity of the innkeep’s daughter?”

Shit. “You’re awful sneaky for a religious man, spying on people.”

“Hardly spying. She was …quite loud in her accusations. I suppose she’s never seen your type before.” He smiled. “And I can’t imagine I would be any less vehement in confronting a youkai, even a halfbreed, like the one that murdered her lover.”

She was the reason Gojyo was up here drinking and smoking instead of enjoying himself in the common room. She hated youkai. Feared them. She’d overlooked Hakkai and Goku’s limiters, due to the convenience of the hoods on their cloaks, but Gojyo’s eyes and hair were a dead giveaway of nonhuman blood. She had taken one look and thrown herself at him in a rage. The girl’s father had pulled her off, apologizing profusely, but Gojyo was already shaken enough to make himself scarce for the night and forget the incident with some liquor. The quality bourbon had been the innkeep’s apology, and after an hour or so he’d begun to feel rather better about the whole thing. After all, what were some histrionics if it got him free booze?

…..except she’d been crying.

Shit.

“Wouldn’t be the first time. Won’t be the last,” Gojyo got out as nonchalantly as he could manage, which wasn’t very.

There was something in Hazel’s eyes that couldn’t quite be identified. “It must be difficult.”

“Can’t change the way things are.”

“And if you could?”

Gojyo laughed, a short, bitter bark.

Hazel persisted. “Would you change your blood, if you could? Change your eyes and hair, choose one side and never look back, if it were an option?”

Your eyes and hair are an admonishment to me, Gojyo-san. Except Cho Gonou was dead, and Hakkai didn’t needed to be reminded any further of blood.

“……….yes.” An exhaled admission, quiet as the night wind.

“I can give you that.”

The redhead stopped brooding and started glaring.

Hazel repeated, with the faintest of smiles. “I can give you that. All things are possible through the Lord’s power.”

Gojyo stared at him, feeling obscurely betrayed. “You,” he said slowly, but with mounting heat behind his eyes, “are so full of bullshit. What the fuck gives you the right to waltz in here and promise things, to me or anyone else, like those villagers you lie to? Does it make you happy to play God over others? Huh?” He stalked forward, quite ready to pick up the ass whupping he’d left off on earlier, and his voice lowered dangerously. “This your idea of fun? Get you off at night, you lying sack of shit?”

“I don’t play God.” Hazel’s eyes burned. “I represent his authority and compassion on Earth, where He chooses not to intervene. And I don’t make empty promises in His name.”

Snort. “Ohhh, right right. You’re here to save souls and crap like that. I forgot.”

“Only for those who would let me. I offer you the choice, Sha-han.”

“Sorry, but I don’t see much basis for me to be agreeing to anything.”

Something shifted in the man’s expression. “You want proof, I suppose.”

Gojyo grinned nastily. “Yeah, that might be nice. I like making informed decisions.”

“…..alright.” Hazel took a breath. “My master was killed by youkai when I was young. I saw his body. Saw what had been done to it. I’ve seen …the same horror, the same cruelty, over and over again because of them.”

Gojyo eyed him. “And this has …what, to do with my proof?”

“I hate youkai,” Hazel said very softly. “I’ve spent my entire life hunting them down. And so, as what I am, because of what I’ve seen, I would never, ever, do this if I thought you were a true, irredeemable demon.”

“Do what --- ”

Hazel kissed him. Stretched up as tall as he could, wound his arms around Gojyo’s neck and pulled gently down to bring their lips together. Gojyo was just astonished enough to let him.

Gojyo was also drunk enough, or pissed or insecure enough, or just well trained enough in the art of physicality, to kiss him back without hesitation. His hands settled of their own accord on Hazel’s hips, and the bishop’s own were free to slide into Gojyo’s hair when the halfbreed kept his head bent down to continue the kiss without Hazel holding him there. Gojyo forgot that the Westerner was a potentially dangerous enemy, couldn’t even peripherally recall the notion with warm, soft lips under his just begging to be further violated. Hazel made a noise that sent fire straight to Gojyo’s groin when the redhead’s tongue gained access unchallenged.

Time stopped, and neither cared.

A burning need for oxygen finally separated them. Gojyo blinked, not sure at what point he’d crowded Hazel up against the building or nudged a thigh between the man’s legs; and Hazel, flushed and breathing just a bit faster than normal, unsheepishly removed his gloved hands from up under Gojyo’s shirt.

“Are you convinced of my sincerity yet?” Hazel made no attempt to push Gojyo away, and though his voice was steady, the rest of him was trembling slightly against the halfbreed with leashed, unmistakable tension. Want.

Gojyo considered. Let his hips grind once against Hazel’s and watched the man’s breath catch, the way his eyes slid halfway shut.

“….nah. I’m drunk. I might need more focused persuasion.”

Hazel paused in the act of stripping off the second white glove with his teeth, the other having already been discarded. Blue eyes narrowed, and Gojyo didn’t quite shiver at the feel of warm, uncalloused fingers tracing the lines of his scars.

“You are human,” Hazel whispered, and let his tongue take the same path. The redhead did shiver this time. “And you belong with your own. Let me …show you..”

Gojyo shuddered and let him.

*****

“ ….what kind of priest are you, anyway..?” Dazed, disbelieving.

“The very frustrated kind. No one here listens to or believes me.” Short, flat, attention occupied with something else.

“ ..ahh ..ah!” Panting. “You have …my undivided attention, really.”

Smug. “For highest likelihood of favorable response, one must speak the language the audience knows best.”

*****

A cigarette flared in the dim light, the second one in as many minutes.

“That is a terrible habit.” The words might have been nagging. The tone, however, was anything but, lazy and satisfied and near purring.

Gojyo was feeling a bit the same way, and took a long drag before answering. “Never been much good at staying away from things that are bad for me.”

“My. I wonder what you could possibly be implying.” A hand moved in the darkness, drifting easy and proprietary over smooth muscle. Gojyo had to hastily remove the cigarette before he bit through it. For someone supposed to be a high and mighty spiritualist, the Westerner knew a damn lot about what made the earthly body shake and shudder. Without those white gloves on Hazel had clever, curious fingers and absolutely no shame in using them, much as the man himself seemed to have no shame in being here, dressed in nothing more substantial than moonlight and settled quite comfortably against Gojyo’s chest.

“You aren’t much what I expected,” the halfbreed admitted wryly, trying not to lean greedily into the petting and failing miserably. He ground out the cigarette and left it in the ashtray, freeing his hand to grab Hazel’s before the man did any further damage. Warm fingers only twined lazily with his own. Hazel was good at taking anything offered; words, action, and turning it into something of his own making.

“And what were you expecting?”

“Oh, I dunno. To get drilled for information on Sanzo, maybe.”

“I would hardly consider myself so impolite as to be thinking of someone else during …well. You know.” Silver hair brushed his cheek as Hazel shifted closer, murmuring into Gojyo’s neck. “Not that you gave me much of a choice.”

Gojyo couldn’t stop himself from smirking. “You didn’t sound like you minded.”

“Mm.” Hazel’s teeth closed gently on the skin over his pulse, and Gojyo amicably shut up.

One had to give the man credit. Gojyo was good at what he did, and practiced enough to put the endurance of most other players to shame. Not only had Hazel kept up with the game, but he didn’t even appear entirely wasted now in the aftermath. There was stamina and not a small amount of strength underneath that frail exterior after all.

Not to mention a very focused mind, as evidenced by his ability to make Gojyo stop breathing for a few moments.

“Damn …tease…” he gasped out finally. The bishop smiled against his skin, prompting a quiet growl, and Gojyo moved to retaliate in kind ..

Hazel winced, unable to help himself. The halfbreed stilled immediately.

“ …I hurt you.” Whispered, not a question.

The Westerner was quiet for a moment, feeling sudden tension in the body under his that even continued stroking could not soothe away. “Sha-han…”

But Gojyo was already drawing back, sitting up so he could see better, and sucked in a sharp breath at the sight of the purpling marks left patterned on ivory white skin.

Marks he had been responsible for. He was careful with his lovers, had to be, when they were only fragile humans and himself otherwise, but it had been a long time since their resting places on the Journey had been safe enough for such indulgence. He’d been perhaps a bit too enthusiastic.

“..fuck. Fuck, I ...I didn’t ….” Gojyo shook his head blindly. “I wasn’t …careful, I didn’t mean to …”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

There was something quietly distressed in the halfbreed’s eyes, in the way his hands danced uselessly over the marks he’d left without any pressure at all for fear of inflicting further injury, but unable to keep away from them. “I….”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Hazel repeated, blinking at the uncharacteristic skittishness. Sat up himself and gently laid hands on both sides of Gojyo’s face so the other would look at him. When the halfbreed finally stopped avoiding his gaze, Hazel kissed him deeply, lingering, and with unmistakable meaning.

“It was not,” and Hazel punctuated his statement with another bite, hard enough to make Gojyo wince this time, “ ..your fault.” He followed up with a lazy swipe of tongue over abused flesh, and then the bishop let him go and settled back down against the pillows, obviously intent on dismissing the entire thing.

Gojyo looked down at him uneasily, the red mark on his throat rising and falling as he swallowed hard. Hazel shut his eyes and forced himself to loosen up, knowing Gojyo would sense it, pretending that he was anywhere near falling asleep.

Silence reigned for a full ten minutes, and Hazel could almost hear the indecision warring inside the other’s head.

It came as expected. Quietly. Apologetically. “I should go.”

Guiltily.

Hazel let escape a near inaudible sigh. Opened his eyes again. Reached out to trace a line down the ridge of Gojyo’s spine on his bare back. “Should you?”

Gojyo’s head dipped slowly, a reluctant affirmative.

“Then you should.” He paused. “I wish you wouldn’t, though.”

A muscle worked in the halfbreed’s jaw. “The others …”

“Aren’t here, Sha-han,” Hazel said firmly. Then, softer. “ …Gojyo.”

The air in the room was cool. Hazel’s arms slipping easily around his shoulders were very, very warm.

“Stay,” the bishop whispered.

Gojyo tensed, but Hazel said nothing else. Did nothing else. Minutes crawled by until Gojyo exhaled slowly. And, muscle by muscle, let himself relax, let Hazel eventually draw him back down without resistance. The room wasn’t cold any longer, and this time it was Gojyo who ducked his head against the other’s neck. Hazel sifted his fingers through long silky hair, soothing without words, and that would have been the end of it.

Except sometime later, when Hazel really was nearly asleep, Gojyo broke the silence.

“Can you really do what you said?” he asked abruptly. “Can you….can you really fix it?”

‘Fix.’ Not ‘change.’

In the dimness, no one could see the Westerner’s slow smile. “Do you trust me?”

“Not in the slightest.” The way he was curled in Hazel’s arms implied otherwise, however.

“Ahn. Then this might require a bit more negotiation.”

“You could just admit you were offering false hope.”

“I wouldn’t do that to you.”

Too fast. That had just slipped out but it was the wrong thing to say; he could feel the pause between breaths, the hardening of muscles in shoulders.

“I don’t understand you,” Gojyo said finally, and Hazel smiled painfully up at the ceiling in the dark.

“Join the club.”

By unspoken consent they both shut up, and sleep claimed two more victims.

*******

“My.”

Gojyo froze in the act of stepping from the room out into the hallway, wet hair from his shower dripping water down his neck. Hazel, having preceded him, managed to look unfazed.

Hakkai’s eyes were frosted glass as he took in Gojyo’s unbelted pants, white tanktop wrinkled from its overnight stay on the floor, and the smugness in Hazel’s cool blue eyes. His voice when he spoke was as compromising as granite. “I wasn’t aware Catholicism permitted her missionaries to use such tactics to convert the heathen unbelievers.”

Hazel shrugged. “I came here as crusader, not missionary. War and …conquest…” and the way he said it made Hakkai grit his teeth, “….are my business.”

The temperature around the green eyed youkai dropped several more degrees, Gojyo noted with vaguely rising terror.

“Um,” he started, until a Look silenced him.

“So territorial,” Hazel said cheerfully. “I didn’t see your name tattooed on him anywhere. And believe me, I looked.”

A faint glow outlined Hakkai’s hand. Chi.

This was about to turn into a bloodbath, and Gojyo didn’t even have his pants buckled yet.

“Sanzo must be ready to go, huh?” he asked a little desperately. “He’ll be pissed if we keep him waiting.”

“Anything but that,” Hazel murmured. “Sanzo-han gets so little sleep, his mood in the mornings must be terrible enough.”

Hakkai’s smile cracked, and for a brief moment Gonou considered, from behind dead green eyes, if the bishop needed to die for daring to presume anything about ‘Sanzo-han.’

“Hakkai?” That was real panic in the halfbreed’s voice.

Gonou sighed. This would be dealt with later. “Go on, Gojyo. I’ll be right behind you.”

Gojyo didn’t look at all happy about this, but did it anyway with one worried glance back over his shoulder.

“I suppose you think you’re terribly clever.”

Hazel flicked a speck of lint off his sleeve. “It had occurred to me.”

“Divide and conquer?” Softly queried. “He doesn’t know the meaning of betrayal. Not against us.”

The bishop’s smile was sunny. “Not against you, you mean. And you’re quite right. It was your name he called last night. But ….” and the man took a step nearer, lowering his voice to deliver the next line, “I was the one holding him when he fell asleep. He’s very sweet once you get past that all that posing and bravado. Very ....accomodating. Malleable.”

Nostrils flared, scenting Gojyo on the bishop’s skin, and something that might have been a low growl escaped.

“You infringe.”

“You’re an animal if you think you own him. He’s not your kind, and he has every right to choose.” As an afterthought he added, “ …as does Sanzo-han.”

This was approaching a dangerous border. Softer voice denoted colder anger. “There is no choice when you coerce. You said something to him.”

“Nothing but the truth.”

“Then I have some truth for you, Hazel-san.” Dead green eyes reflected the light like jade, and the smile disappeared. Gonou spoke with Hakkai’s mouth. “I have killed a thousand and five hundred for the sake of one I cared for. Don’t think I’d hesitate to add another body to that list for the sake of these.”

Hazel gazed at him levelly. “Do you love them so, to find my presence threatening?”

Gonou would not answer, but the look in his eyes was answer enough.

Hazel tilted his head, considering, and then swept into a low bow. “I hear and accept your warning, Cho-han. But …” and the twist of his mouth was slow and knowing. “Don’t think I won’t take what victories I can. All’s fair in love and war.”

Gonou’s dead stare met Hazel’s razor smile. A challenge accepted between equals.

And that was how the War began.